Dear Mom and Pop surf shop proprietors –
Just got out of the water – first session on my new board. I always try to pay extra attention the first time on a new board to retain a sense of how the board ‘feels’ in some standard maneuvers as compared to the ‘muscle’ memory from a previous board.
So, here are the results:
The board paddles like a dream. The extra thickness works perfectly. Knee paddling is a snap. Prone, I can get going really fast and maintain trim across the water. It gets “up on step”, to use a seaplane term for takeing off on water, and from there I can maintain speed with just minimum effort combined with quick strokes.
I put the fins in, two on the outside, the big one in the center. So I’ll have to futz with that set up, including adding high density foam to the outside fins to give them foil. However, the lack of foam up in the nose area, due to the pulled in template and step deck, results in the board coming around on a dime under complete control. No sense of steering a big block of foam around, no pendulum effect from a big blobby nose.
Speed and trim are simply remarkable – the pulled in nose gives the outline the perfect curve vs. the wall of the wave, so I can do a quick cross-over step and the board just fits the wave and goes!
Got two good lefts, and a friend on the beach said it looked like I was riding a shortboard!
So, all in all, the first impressions couldn’t be better. Everything I wanted to achieve with the modifications over last year’s board seem to have been accomplished!
And the colors! So cheery and friendly! Maybe I need a death’s head skater logo or something, cause just sitting on the board makes me smile.
Ok, that’s about it for now. Thanks for all the effort – we set out to do something different based on sound reasoning about what makes a good longboard, and the results couldn’t be more encouraging.
Regards,
Glenn Hening, Ventura, CA, Founder of Surfrider Foundation
9’1″ x 21 1/4″ x 3 1/2″ Diamond Tail Step Deck Longboard/Hybrid
surfboard review: custom diamond tail step deck longboards, ventura surf
